Democracy requires accountability, so how did the UK government set up a system whereby it effectively holds itself to account?
They started with an arms-length body called an Ombudsman and they needed to convince the public that this body is independent of government. The belief in independence was crucial to success so they called the Ombudsman a Crown Servant, selected by the the Head of State, to hold the executive to account. The fact that recommendation for appointment comes from parliamentarians, that funding comes from the Treasury and that the Cabinet Office control the governing legislation is irrelevant. The Ombudsman is independent and impartial because they tell us this is so.
It took some time to set up appropriate legislative guidance as they attempted to provide the Ombudsman with the powers of a High Court Judge, yet at the same time prevent undue interference into parliamentary matters. Through a series of amendments, lasting some years of debate, they decided not to give this body either teeth or claws by which some damage may be done. The following paraphrased quote from Hansard gives a flavour of the 1967 debates which can be read in full here: api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1967/jan/24/clause-5-matters-subject-to-investigation api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1967/jan/24/schedule-3-matters-not-subject-to
“The Bill was always drafted to be a swiz, and now it is spelt into the Bill…………Anyone who contemplates an office of this kind is faced with the dilemma of making it either a Frankenstein or a nonentity—a Frankenstein if it has effective powers and a nonentity if it has not. The Government, quite rightly, has opted for its being a nonentity, and in that sense it is a fraud……… I congratulate the Government on its being a nonentity. A Frankenstein would, I think, have undermined the power of Ministers…… it is a noble facade without anything behind it”
HANSARD JANUARY 1967 VOL 739 CC1375-400 AND HANSARD JANUARY 1967 VOL 739 CC1419-53
So far, so good. The next job is to ensure that each Ombudsman has a good track record of service to the state. Our current Ombudsman came to office in 2017 when members of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) found the ideal candidate in Rob Behrens CBE.
Rob was Independent Adjudicator and Chief Executive of OIAHE, the ombudsman service for higher education students in England and Wales, for two terms between 2008 and 2016. Previously, Rob worked in higher education and then had a career in the UK civil service. During his time with the civil service, Rob served for three years as Secretary to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the body giving independent advice on standards to the Prime Minister. He also worked in international development, including notable work on the South African transformation from apartheid – a role for which he was thanked personally by Nelson Mandela. Rob was also Complaints Commissioner to the Bar Standards Board of England and Wales between 2006 and 2008.
https://www.ombudsmanassociation.org/about-us/validation-committee/rob-behrens
We can see what a good choice this was by looking at the impact on parliamentary investigations in the year following Rob Behrens appointment. They reduced from 28.32% investigated in 2017/18 to just 6.97% the following year. Well done Rob.
Currently 95% of parliamentary complaints are dismissed without investigation and fewer than 1% are upheld to some extent.
But that 1% could cause a headache for government except for the fact that the Ombudsman has no powers of compliance. Having found a government department to be guilty of maladministration, the Ombudsman can do no more than lay a report before parliament in the hope that the executive will enforce the proposed remedy.
Here is one such report produced in January 2022 relating to compensation payments to people who had been underpaid by the DWP in regards to their ESA benefits. Having found maladministration in payment to an individual complainant, the Ombudsman recommended that compensation payments should be made to all those who had been affected. But the DWP disagreed, as recorded by David Hencke @ Westminster Confidential.
DWP ignores the Parliamentary Ombudsman and refuses to compensate 118,000 disabled people hit by benefit maladministration
The Department for Work and Pensions has set a worrying precedent for millions of people hoping to get compensation if civil servants get their benefit and pensions payments wrong or don’t inform them correctly by refusing to pay them a penny.
The decision also shows up the weakness of complaining about maladministration to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Robert Behrens, in cases involving the ministry as it ignores his rulings.
https://davidhencke.com/2022/08/07/dwp-ignores-the-parliamentary-ombudsman-and-refuses-to-compensate-118000-disabled-people-hit-by-benefit-maladministration/
The toothless Ombudsman can do no more. DWP are allowed to hold themselves to account and the Cabinet Office are silent on the issue. The Ombudsman has served his purpose, to provide a facade of accountability. If you have deep pockets and a trust in the judicial system you could attempt a judicial review, otherwise you just have to suck it up for the Ombudsman himself is unaccountable.
phsothetruestory 
‘The toothless Ombudsman can do no more.’
Here is a letter written by Amanda Amroliwala (health complaint) which shows how a Trust can simply ignore PHSO findings on those rare occasions when the PHSO identifies wrongdoing:
Click to access Letter%20from%20Amanda%20Amroliwala%20to%20Dame%20Ruth%20May.pdf
Let’s see how the Trust responds!
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In other words – “When we do find something wrong, no one has to take any notice of us and we have no power to make them do so!”
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PHSO looking feedback on its ‘new ‘Browse and search our decisions’ service:
https://decisions.ombudsman.org.uk/
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I’ve been appalled and mentally affected for life the prejudice, bias, written and verbal ignorant rubbish from so-called “caseworkers” and management alike. And by the endless streams of those ‘shenanigans’ played out by the office of the “Fair”, “Balanced”, “Transparent” “Impartial”, “Independent” Ombudsman… yet none of those.
Nor any trustable or worthwhile data which could be used to prove their claims of ‘Excellence”. Hot air, unproven claims, buried complaints, destroyed lives through illegal but systemically-delivered tactic, and little or no learning as beneficial outcome which might have saved £millions in UKs main assets: a well-served population who might have been able to trust its Government Services. They cannot.
PHSO arrogance I have even seen extended to its “Freedom of Information” desk, where likely as not your question will be altered to match the misleading dogma they wish to promulgate, yet be unable to elucidate on systems and measures that, very obviously, the PHSO carefully does not implement or even document for fear of exposure in its ‘smoke and mirrors’ Govt. protection racket.
My opinions of course but based on my experience of PHSO tactics over years in a much delayed and unresolved complaint of serious maladministration and a death, then finding NHS lies concealed by PHSO until after abrupt case closure on false grounds.
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PHSO caseworkers have a heart of steel Colin. I’m sure the high staff turnover reflects the fact that some of them can’t stomach lying to the public and denying justice. Unfortunately, many can do this and take the money for it. We need to look to God for retribution for there are no organisations here on earth that will punish the guilty.
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This is a great article. Unfortunately, the PHSO is another layer in the cover up process, designed to cover up the cover ups and protect the public reputations of the state’s institutions and those in charge. The system is designed to this end and these bodies play their role by simply protecting one another. It does this at huge disservice to the individual and public at large who it is meant to protect and look out for. In this way, the PHSO is one of many bodies which fundamentally undermines our so called democratic society because there is no accountability or redress at all and no public safeguarding from state abuse and corruption. Its all just window dressing. I’d advise anyone to listen to the people’s voices & their real lived experiences not the self interested cronies who go around patting one another on the back. Don’t get your hopes up, don’t have any expectations of justice, truth, accountability or integrity, this country is as low and grubbily corrupt as a Nigerian kangaroo court.
In my experience, I raised a complaint with the Health Ombudsman about an NHS Trust. Based upon independent clinical advice my complaint was going to be upheld, until the Trust’s CEO, Steve Trenchard, who was mates with the PHSO’s MD, Mick Martin, colluded to change the report into one that didn’t uphold my complaint. It is open corruption.
https://patientcomplaintdhcftdotcom.wordpress.com/
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It’s a great article and your comment is great too.
Your eye-opening story refers to shenanigans surrounding an expert report. I am familiar with information going missing or inaccurate information being recorded in circumstances such as yours, but the continued failure of an expert to refer to the more recent relevant report he said he had written is something new (and deeply sinister).
You end your story with:
‘vii. The NHS complaints process should not be controlled by the NHS but referred to an external independent body from the start- one that is truly independent.’
Unfortunately, the ‘independent’ body we have is the PHSO – the ‘swiz’. A truly independent body would reveal much more than any government could stomach.
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Those with power continue to bask in their 6 figure salaries, status, bonuses and promotions and are untouchable while the rest of us are left to suffer in silence under their misfeasance and corruption. Welcome to the great 21st century western democracy called the UK!!
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What we are seeing is a corruption of democracy and it should be called out as corruption.
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Here is a case from the murky world of the Family Court that shows how anonymity protects medical experts. If they have been granted it, the person wishing to complain about them (and who knows their name) can’t lawfully disclose their name to the GMC without the court’s permission. Hence they can’t be investigated.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/anonymisation_of_expert_witnesse
In this case, however, permission was given to the applicant to disclose the judgment in full to the GMC.
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Interesting to see that the GMC did not store the data in any retrievable way. Handy that.
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There is also the annual Pacac shindig that adds a veneer of legitimacy: ‘scrutiny’ that bars the examination of individual complaints. Venice Principles (tick), international ombudsmen (tick), peer review (tick), collaborative working (tick), working from home (tick), staff training (tick)…
Sadly, those entrusted with holding the government to account often get their jobs via a tap on the shoulder. The search for the next Ombudsman may already have begun:
‘15.2 Members asked about Succession Planning and the arrangements for the appointment of a new Ombudsman. The CEO advised that the organisation was in discussion with the Cabinet Office. The process will start early in 2023 and is expected to last a year.’
Click to access Approved%20%20Minutes%20-%20Board%20Open%20%20Session-28%20September%202022.pdf
Throw off your shoulder pads to avoid missing the tap – it could happen anywhere!
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It will be another safe pair of hands but I doubt they will manage to investigate even fewer complaints than Rob Behrens but you never know. Closing down complaints is the real purpose of the Ombudsman.
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No sign of the search having started for Mr. Behren’s replacement. However, the Public Appointments section of the Cabinet Office website shows a vacancy for the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (closing date 5th March). Maybe the search for a new PHSO may start when the LGO vacancy closes.
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‘Toothless’, yes, an article in the Guardian last October, sums up an impotent system can be. It’s entitled ‘Maternity Care is not on a Journey of Obvious Improvement’ (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/19/maternity-care-is-not-on-a-journey-of-obvious-improvement).
We read of the continuous catalogue of failings at East Kent NHS Trust between 2009 and 2020. Can the current Ombudsman maintain, as he has with cases in the past that this was not on his watch?
In the article, I feel that Mr Behrens inadvertently damns the system he oversees. The Guardian includes, ‘No wonder Rob Behrens, the NHS Ombudsman, says: “The phrase ‘never again’ is starting to ring hollow.”
If its starting to ‘ring hollow’ then it’s time to look behind the curtain – this blog does that. Thanks
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It is interesting to note that the Ombudsman is never the first person to call out an NHS scandal yet they should have all the data at their fingertips. .
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The most cruel aspect of the Ombudsman service is that people in despair and at their wits end go to the Ombudsman in hope of a fair service and justice. By the time they realise that it is “…a facade without anything behind it” it is too late. Even worse, should they then attempt legal action the courts will simply say that the Ombudsman has already looked at this and found nothing amiss. Taking a complaint to the Ombudsman is the worst mistake anyone can make.
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The abuse of the term “Independent” for the PHSO was used more recently with the so called Independent nurses pay review body to show the body is in fact rigged by Government. This is also true of the so called Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) which was replaced by the so called Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) in 2018 due to internal corruption. Having dealt with all three bodies I can confirm they are little more than protection rackets for Government.
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Spot on. They are the government’s henchmen.
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